From polar regions to agriculture: Collecting user needs for the future of Copernicus

The European Commission (EC) is organising a series of workshops aimed at gathering user requirements to be fulfilled by the next generation of the Copernicus programme’s Space Component. The most recent workshops focused on issues which relate to crucial societal challenges: the monitoring of polar regions and continental snow cover, as well as agriculture and forestry. The main goal of these workshops is to understand how the future Copernicus Sentinels and Contributing Missions could satisfy the needs of the scientific and operational communities dealing with these issues.

The European Commission (EC), which is responsible for the Copernicus programme, has initiated an action with the objective of gathering user requirements for the Next Generation of the Copernicus Space Component (CSC). The EC's Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (DG GROW) tasked the NEXTSPACE consortium[1]with the organisation of thematic workshops with the aim to stimulate discussion amongst expert stakeholders, consolidate well-known user requirements, and collect emerging needs. These events represent a unique opportunity for the attendees to provide the EC with their priorities in terms of observation needs, data, products and information, as a function of their mandates and activities. Two such workshops were organised in June 2016, focusing on Polar & Snow Cover (June 23rd) and Agriculture & Forestry (June 30th) Applications. The audience in both cases consisted of users, service providers, representatives from the scientific community, the EC, Member States, international organisations and Space agencies. A summary of the most interesting outcomes from these two events are presented below.

Polar and Snow Cover Applications User Requirements Workshop

The role that Copernicus could play by providing up-to-date, accurate and timely information about the polar regions is closely linked to the new and evolving European policies for these areas. These policies respond both to the economic (e.g. maritime traffic and mining) and environmental (i.e. climate-related) changes taking place in these regions, which naturally also affect the indigenous populations (in the case of the Arctic).

Interesting and useful polar-related products are already delivered, in a quasi-operational form, by the Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service and by the EUMETSAT Satellite Applications Facilities (SAFs), but they are not, at present, considered to fully satisfy user needs. The operational products mainly come from meteorological satellites and from Copernicus missions not specifically designed with these objectives in mind. It is nevertheless widely considered that the use of data from meteorological missions will need to continue and improve in polar areas. In particular, the development of a highly elliptical orbit (HEO) mission in complement to the meteorological programmes would provide high synergies and tremendous benefits to users. In this context, issues such as optimisation of existing instruments, definition of optimal orbit plans maximising the number of observations should be considered.

During the workshop, a broad agreement emerged amongst key stakeholders on the fact that polar regions have not been given sufficient attention within the Copernicus programme. This comes despite long-standing European efforts to monitor the polar regions outside the confines of the programme: the long experience with ERS and Envisat, the continued support (more than 30 years) by ESA to polar studies and initiatives, and the success of experimental missions like Cryosat-2 and SMOS.

Thanks to these efforts, most user requirements are in fact well-understood, having been consolidated over a long period of time by scientists and by operational organisations. It is clear that an operational and enhanced continuity should be considered for CryoSat observations, but also for a number of measurements performed by the SMOS satellite. Multi-band radar measurements would improve operational services. Better coverage should be achieved, possibly with dedicated orbits, and the possibility of a multi-mission observation capability was touched upon. The spatial resolution should be improved in several domains and temporal resolution in nearly all of them. Freezing and thawing should be monitored better than they currently are, for climate monitoring and for industry operations. Ice volumes over land should be better estimated. The timeliness of the delivery of products for operational use as well as fitness for purpose should be improved: delays are often unacceptable (e.g. for ice breakers, navigation, infrastructure building, etc.). The reduced availability of critical in situ networks is another source of concern: polar zones require an integrated view and the question of an integrated polar service has been raised.

Similar considerations emerged from the presentations and the discussion about the monitoring of continental snow covered areas. Snow significantly affects daily life and economy in many European countries. Heavy seasonal snow notoriously disrupts transport and has an impact on business and commerce, water provision, hydroelectric power supplies, agriculture, tourism and recreational activities. Moreover, snow plays an important role in regulating the Earth’s climate as an essential component of the water cycle and by reflecting incident solar radiation back out to Space. Thus, it is of utmost importance to monitor changes in the extent, duration, thickness and properties of snow.

The list of products required is quite clear (e.g. Total Snow Area, Snow Water Equivalent, Melting Snow Extent, Snow/Ice Albedo, Snow/Ice Surface Temperature, Snow Grain Size) and there is a consensus about their characteristics and requirements. The importance of measuring snow parameters is evident in several areas (climate, hydrology, hazards, etc.). Yet only a subset of the desired products is currently available operationally and often without the appropriate accuracy and spatial or temporal resolutions. The critical need for in situ measurements was once again stressed.

Agriculture and Forestry Applications User Requirements Workshop

The workshop was structured to cover the two main themes of agriculture and forestry in relation to monitoring technology and future satellite missions. The morning session was dedicated to the agriculture and food security domains, with presentations from users from local to global levels. The afternoon programme focused on forestry applications, followed by a subsequent session on advanced technology opportunities and future missions. Each session had its specific panel discussion (with a duration of approximately one hour) during which the audience had the opportunity to make statements and present needs/requirements, while expressing their feedback to the content presented.

The workshop highlighted the varied Earth Observation (EO) needs of the agriculture sector, which include the monitoring of crop area, type, condition, yield, stress, risk and management, supported by spatially detailed time series of within-field measurements. Similarly, the needs of the forestry sector include the monitoring of forest area, species, height and canopy structure, volume, biomass, and damage, also supported by spatially detailed time series of information, although in this case there is an emphasis on long term monitoring. It was stressed by the participants that the current Copernicus fleet of satellites is already highly capable represents a step change in what can be accomplished with Earth Observation) and is not yet fully exploited.

One of the key requirements from the user community relates thus to continuity, and specifies that any development of the Sentinel fleet should represent an expansion of existing capabilities rather than an alteration, as the establishment of sustainable services is only possible with this guarantee. A number of specific potential improvements were identified during this workshop:

A thermal mission or thermal bands on a Sentinel-2-like spacecraft with a resolution of at least 50 m (ideally higher)

An increase of temporal revisit to cope with cloud-affected areas where the frequency of viable acquisitions is low.

A potential improvement of spatial resolution for optical and radar missions to 5 m, ideally up to 1-2 m.

In addition, there is a common requirement for the data delivered by the Sentinels to be analysis-ready, either at Level 2 or in the form of multi-date composites and/or product suites.

Linked to the complexity and specificity of the requested information for agriculture and forestry , there will be a need for the Sentinels and the other EO systems to work in collaboration requiring more data fusion and integration.